The demonstration anticipates the June 4th vigil. It is the only event in the entire Chinese world to commemorate the victims of 1989. The activists call for the end of the single party rule and the release of human rights defenders.
Hong Kong (AsiaNews / Agencies) - "Resisting the authoritarianism" of Beijing and remembering the victims of Tiananmen Square: this is why more than 1,000 demonstrators yesterday challenged the heat wave that has been covering Hong Kong for days, marching towards the Office for relations with China (Liason Office).
The event is organized every year by the Alliance to support the democratic patriotic movements of China, and precedes the vigil of June 4 in memory of the victims of Tiananmen Square by a few days.
29 years have passed since the Chinese army crackdown on students and workers who called for democracy in June 1989. The death toll is still unknown: some speak of hundreds of people, maybe thousands. Hong Kong is the only place in the Chinese world to host an event in memory of the massacre, in contrast to the widespread and severe censorship applied in China.
According to the organizers, about 1,100 people took part yesterday, a higher number than the 2017 march. The police estimate almost half of them, 610. Most of them are adults, for whom the bloody events of June 1989 are burnt in their memory. Yesterday, protesters called for the "end of the single party dictatorship", the release of human rights activists - including the widow of Liu Xiaobo, Liu Xia, and Wang Quanzhang -, and that Beijing admits its responsibilities over the dead of Tiananmen Square.
In Mainland China, " “Human rights, freedom, democracy and justice have continued to deteriorate” in mainland China, said Richard Tsoi Yiu-cheong, representing the Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the march organiser. “In Hong Kong, we have not yet reached the point where we have to ‘put our lives aside’. Yet under the shadow of authoritarianism, the price for saying one particular slogan is increasing". Tsoi refers to the chant of pro-democracy activists, according to whom " only with the end of one-party rule could a democratic China be realised". To those who pronounce it, the position can cost the disqualification from local elections of the territory. According to the director of the Alliance, Albert Ho Chun-yan, the activists are "ready to face any consequence".